HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Intel's billion-dollar Vietnam bet along the Hanoi Highway - its biggest semiconductor manufacturing plant ever - is rising up from the flatlands of former rice fields.
The Santa Clara chip giant jolted the tech world two years ago when it announced it would build a massive assembly factory in this Southeast Asian country known more for making shoes and growing crops than assembling key PC components. Intel picked Vietnam, a nation of 85 million that lacks a single world-class university, over India, whose army of engineers has reordered the global software industry.
"We are not afraid to be first," said Rick Howarth, Intel's lanky general manager overseeing the 115-acre construction site in the new Saigon Hi-Tech Park. By the end of 2009, chipsets (pairings of more than one chip used for specialized tasks) are expected to roll off the assembly line to feed the company's massive global supply chain from a complex that will equal the size of nearly nine football fields and employ about 4,000 workers.
The project, dubbed A-9 - nine is an auspicious number in Vietnam - is emblematic of Intel's muscular role as an iconic industry leader that can influence the fortunes of nations merely by deciding where it will plant its next factory.
In Malaysia, which 35 years ago became Intel's first site outside the United States, the company helped to create a tech ecosystem with its $3.3 billion investment in testing, assembly
more info->Intel reshaping Vietnam with billion-dollar chip-assembly plant - San Jose Mercury News
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